Attention To All Hotmail Users!!!

azukre · 24 Mar 2002, 03:01 PM

Now Microsoft urges it's hotmail users to upgrade to premium membership for $19.95 a year.

I think it's time for FastMail.fm to step in on this.

For more detail infromation:

Microsoft sweeps out Hotmail accounts

ChristopherChin · 24 Mar 2002, 04:10 PM

The only thing I remember from Hotmail/MSN is that I never received my emails until roughly a day later! It drove me nuts. I'm the type of person that wants to receive an email within 30 seconds or so. Luckily, FastMail.FM achieves that with no problems whatsoever.

Christopher

Jeremy Howard · 24 Mar 2002, 07:09 PM

If anyone has any contact with journalists or does some writing themselves, please help spread the word! We don't have any special access to Hotmail customers to let them know that they're not getting the best deal.

If you don't know any journos, write into your local paper or magazine and tell them your experiences with FastMail.FM. One forum user did that a few months ago to Israel's largest newspaper, and shortly found that they had a small story on FastMail.FM in their technology section!

***Edwin*** · 24 Mar 2002, 08:02 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Jeremy Howard
If anyone has any contact with journalists or does some writing themselves, please help spread the word! We don't have any special access to Hotmail customers to let them know that they're not getting the best deal.

If you don't know any journos, write into your local paper or magazine and tell them your experiences with FastMail.FM. One forum user did that a few months ago to Israel's largest newspaper, and shortly found that they had a small story on FastMail.FM in their technology section!

And of course it would be very nice if you mentioned WHERE you heard about Fastmail.fm i.e. EmailAddresses.com and the discussion forums at EmailDiscussions.com.

azukre · 24 Mar 2002, 08:19 PM

I don't know anyone that's a jounalist, but I wrote an email to Stefanie Olsen(CNET Staff Writer), and told her that basiclly the only good email provider left is Fastmail.fm.

I was wondering if 20% of yahoo and hotmail moved to fastmail.fm. Can Fastmail handle it?

**psalzer** · 24 Mar 2002, 08:26 PM

I used to be worried about Fastmail going corporate. Now I think we're all going to get rich on their IPO.

Jeremy said they're ready for 10 million users. I'm willing to bet the ranch that if they get too many, too fast they'll call a halt to new sign-ups until they can expand their capacity rather than let Fastmail suffer from too much off a good thing too soon. They're very smart, unlike many, many business people.

Jeremy Howard · 25 Mar 2002, 03:28 AM

I don't know that I'd go as far as "smart"

, but we're certainly pretty fussy about our reputation. I can't think of too many other providers that spend 3 years on development and testing before actually publicising their system because they're so careful about making sure it works well!

While we run regular stress tests on large volumes, it isn't possible to test for every possible usage scenario (people find ways of using FastMail.FM in ways we have never thought of!) But if for any reason we find we're having scaling problems, we'll just halt signups until we sort them out, as Psalzer suggested. We've had to do that once so far, when we stopped signups for about 3 days a few months ago.

**ReuvenNY** · 25 Mar 2002, 03:54 AM

Jeremy, I hope you get 10 million users soon and get rich! This is the spirit of capitalism. Just make sure you do not lose the spirit of the community we have here right now.
Some of the attributes that distinguish your venture from your competition is your responsiveness, dedication, care, logic, intelligence and love of what you do.
Your customers notice it all and flock to FastMail. Growth has a lot of rewards and risks. May you enjoy the rewards and handle the risk right!

Reuven

Jeremy Howard · 25 Mar 2002, 04:09 AM

Thanks for your kind and thoughtful words, Reuven. I'll be sure to keep them in mind.

Trip · 25 Mar 2002, 05:21 AM

I guess it may be that I have been lucky enough to avoid Hotmail all together or just educated enough about email never to have touched Hotmail with a 60-foot pole...but common, why on earth would people even use their service anyways?

There are so many sites out there that offer spamless service that are still free...SO MANY that are better than Hotmail that it just astounds me how people can just become so helpless that they blindly submit themselves to Microsoft before ever actually THINKING about what they want to use for important email messages!

sigh...I personally think that this article does a brilliant job of solving this whole issue...READ, which, in my opinion, would ELIMINATE MORE THAN HALF THE QUESTIONS ON THESE FORUMS if people just took the time to explore the issues for themselves.

Hehe, there's my rant for the month.

Maybe I am coming off as being harsh, but I don't really care, because I feel by speaking out if I manage to ward off even 1 person from signing up with Hotmail, then my effort in this post has succeeded to some degree.

Just think for yourselves people and use these boards as a tool, not a "quick-and-easy-answer-to-everything-hotline." It saves other like Jeremy and Liz valuable time that they could be using to code, etc.

...Not directed to anyone in perticular here, but just venting some overall frustration I guess. Hey Edwin...make that SEARCH button up there about twice as large, with blinking arrows around it, and colored RED, will ya?

lux · 25 Mar 2002, 06:10 AM

Many people sign up at Hotmail just for a Passport...

If we are going to have something like Fastmail Instant Messenger, that will be nice...

**munchkin** · 25 Mar 2002, 06:15 AM

Sure but you can sign up for an passport with any address...some ppl just don't know it I guess.

erimess · 25 Mar 2002, 09:42 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Trip
I guess it may be that I have been lucky enough to avoid Hotmail all together or just educated enough about email never to have touched Hotmail with a 60-foot pole...but common, why on earth would people even use their service anyways?

Speaking for myself (not that I need to be defensive, but just as an explanation) when I originally got my Hotmail account it was because I was new to the Internet and had no clue about anything. The email I was using was bulletin board based (I still have it too) and I couldn't access it from work cause I couldn't do a modem-to-modem. I wanted to send myself stuff and I signed up for Hotmail just cause I needed a web-based service to do this at work. Oh, I didn't have internet access at home either.

At a later time, after I had another email, I kept the Hotmail to use as a junk account. It comes in very handy for that. If they start charging I will simply change my junk account to another free account. I also believe that MS didn't own Hotmail at the time I signed up. I do remember when that MSN logo thing started showing up.

I would have no tolerance for using it as a regular account.

I tutor at a college and hang out in the lab all the time. Whenever someone comes in wanting to know about email, usually being totally unfamiliar with the internet or email or anything else, the people in the lab always suggest Hotmail. (Of course, none of the lab techs use it themselves.

)

erimess · 25 Mar 2002, 09:52 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by psalzer
They're very smart, unlike many, many business people.

That's cause they're computer people, not business people.

Actually, I mean that half-seriously, because it seems they are more interested in doing something they enjoy doing, providing something they think is worthwhile, and not so much worrying about making muchos dollars. Not that there's anything wrong with wanting to make money. I do accounting, so I spent half my waking hours dealing with "business people" and looking at dollars, and I can definitely tell the difference between someone who's in it because they like it (and hopefully making ends meet), and someone whose only concern is making the $'s go higher and higher and higher...

erimess · 25 Mar 2002, 09:54 AM

I must be jabbering too much. I've just noticed that I've moved up from "Junior Member" to "Member."

24 Mar 2002, 03:01 PM	#1
azukre Junior Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Posts: 14	Attention To All Hotmail Users!!! Now Microsoft urges it's hotmail users to upgrade to premium membership for $19.95 a year. I think it's time for FastMail.fm to step in on this. For more detail infromation: Microsoft sweeps out Hotmail accounts

25 Mar 2002, 05:21 AM	#10
Trip Master of the @ Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: USA Posts: 1,347 Representative of: Runbox.com	Sigh...wth... I guess it may be that I have been lucky enough to avoid Hotmail all together or just educated enough about email never to have touched Hotmail with a 60-foot pole...but common, why on earth would people even use their service anyways? There are so many sites out there that offer spamless service that are still free...SO MANY that are better than Hotmail that it just astounds me how people can just become so helpless that they blindly submit themselves to Microsoft before ever actually THINKING about what they want to use for important email messages! sigh...I personally think that this article does a brilliant job of solving this whole issue...READ, which, in my opinion, would ELIMINATE MORE THAN HALF THE QUESTIONS ON THESE FORUMS if people just took the time to explore the issues for themselves. Hehe, there's my rant for the month. Maybe I am coming off as being harsh, but I don't really care, because I feel by speaking out if I manage to ward off even 1 person from signing up with Hotmail, then my effort in this post has succeeded to some degree. Just think for yourselves people and use these boards as a tool, not a "quick-and-easy-answer-to-everything-hotline." It saves other like Jeremy and Liz valuable time that they could be using to code, etc. ...Not directed to anyone in perticular here, but just venting some overall frustration I guess. Hey Edwin...make that SEARCH button up there about twice as large, with blinking arrows around it, and colored RED, will ya?

24 Mar 2002, 04:10 PM	#2
ChristopherChin Junior Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: San Antonio, TX Posts: 5	The only thing I remember from Hotmail/MSN is that I never received my emails until roughly a day later! It drove me nuts. I'm the type of person that wants to receive an email within 30 seconds or so. Luckily, FastMail.FM achieves that with no problems whatsoever. Christopher

24 Mar 2002, 07:09 PM	#3
Jeremy Howard Ultimate Contributor Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: Australia Posts: 11,501	If anyone has any contact with journalists or does some writing themselves, please help spread the word! We don't have any special access to Hotmail customers to let them know that they're not getting the best deal. If you don't know any journos, write into your local paper or magazine and tell them your experiences with FastMail.FM. One forum user did that a few months ago to Israel's largest newspaper, and shortly found that they had a small story on FastMail.FM in their technology section!

24 Mar 2002, 08:19 PM	#5
azukre Junior Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Posts: 14	I don't know anyone that's a jounalist, but I wrote an email to Stefanie Olsen(CNET Staff Writer), and told her that basiclly the only good email provider left is Fastmail.fm. I was wondering if 20% of yahoo and hotmail moved to fastmail.fm. Can Fastmail handle it?

24 Mar 2002, 08:26 PM	#6
psalzer Moderator Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Long Island, NY Posts: 2,654	I used to be worried about Fastmail going corporate. Now I think we're all going to get rich on their IPO. Jeremy said they're ready for 10 million users. I'm willing to bet the ranch that if they get too many, too fast they'll call a halt to new sign-ups until they can expand their capacity rather than let Fastmail suffer from too much off a good thing too soon. They're very smart, unlike many, many business people.

25 Mar 2002, 03:28 AM	#7
Jeremy Howard Ultimate Contributor Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: Australia Posts: 11,501	I don't know that I'd go as far as "smart" , but we're certainly pretty fussy about our reputation. I can't think of too many other providers that spend 3 years on development and testing before actually publicising their system because they're so careful about making sure it works well! While we run regular stress tests on large volumes, it isn't possible to test for every possible usage scenario (people find ways of using FastMail.FM in ways we have never thought of!) But if for any reason we find we're having scaling problems, we'll just halt signups until we sort them out, as Psalzer suggested. We've had to do that once so far, when we stopped signups for about 3 days a few months ago.

25 Mar 2002, 03:54 AM	#8
ReuvenNY Moderator Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: New York Posts: 4,259	Jeremy, I hope you get 10 million users soon and get rich! This is the spirit of capitalism. Just make sure you do not lose the spirit of the community we have here right now. Some of the attributes that distinguish your venture from your competition is your responsiveness, dedication, care, logic, intelligence and love of what you do. Your customers notice it all and flock to FastMail. Growth has a lot of rewards and risks. May you enjoy the rewards and handle the risk right! Reuven

25 Mar 2002, 04:09 AM	#9
Jeremy Howard Ultimate Contributor Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: Australia Posts: 11,501	Thanks for your kind and thoughtful words, Reuven. I'll be sure to keep them in mind.

25 Mar 2002, 06:10 AM	#11
lux The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Jan 2002 Posts: 2,274	Many people sign up at Hotmail just for a Passport... If we are going to have something like Fastmail Instant Messenger, that will be nice...

25 Mar 2002, 06:15 AM	#12
munchkin Moderator Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: Milliways Posts: 1,165	Sure but you can sign up for an passport with any address...some ppl just don't know it I guess.

25 Mar 2002, 09:54 AM	#15
erimess Senior Member Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: U.S. Posts: 163	I must be jabbering too much. I've just noticed that I've moved up from "Junior Member" to "Member."